Kassa Hailu rose from a frontier lord to be crowned Tewodros II in 1855, ending the Era of the Princes. He sought to modernise the army and church, but died by his own hand at Magdala in 1868 as a British expedition stormed the fortress.

Yohannes IV (1872–1889) defeated Egyptian invasions at Gundet (1875) and Gura (1876), and died fighting the Mahdists at Metemma in 1889.

Menelik II of Shewa expanded the empire south and west. When Italy claimed a protectorate under the disputed Treaty of Wuchale, he mobilised the nation. At Adwa the Ethiopian army destroyed General Baratieri's force.

Menelik went on to bring the telephone, the first modern schools and banks, and to begin the railway from Djibouti, completed to Addis Ababa in 1917.